Ignore all rules

The stance of ignoring all rules is itself a rule, constituting a paradox. A scholar on Immanuel Kant's view of genius states that this critical stance is accordingly transcended by the autonomy of genius: "Genius demonstrates its autonomy not by ignoring all rules, but by deriving the rules from itself."[2]

Illustrating 'ignore all rules'

A famous quote of Ralph Waldo Emerson is "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."[3]

In 2001, Stephen King made "ignore all rules" the second rule of reading in his autobiographical On Writing.[4]

"Ignore All Rules" is a "favorite" rule of the English-language open content encyclopedia, Wikipedia.[5] Its formulation is generally (emphasis in original), "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it."[6] Wikipedia has a tradition of treating rules skeptically, except for this rule.[5] The philosophy or mantra was championed by Larry Sanger[7] (a co-founder of Wikipedia, active 2001–2002), who made it the first of a set of site guidelines[8] (but later rejected it);[7] it continues to be disseminated by Jimmy Wales (the still active co-founder of Wikipedia).[6]